In recent years the use of biocatalysts of nanometer scale, so called nanobiocatalysts has attracted increasing interest for various purposes in various fields of application.
For example, for the treatment of municipal or other wastewater it has been shown that removing pollutants such as pesticides, industrial surfactants, pharmaceuticals and hormonally active compounds collectively being referred to as emerging organic contaminants (EOGs) from the water by using nanobiocatalysts can be particularly efficient (see, e.g., [1]). In particular, suitable nanobiocatalysts can comprise a support material on which an enzyme is bound wherein the enzyme is catalyzing a transformation process in which EOCs are removed, reduced or made ineffective.
For the industrial use of nanobiocatalysts for various purposes comparably large amounts of suitable nanobiocatalysts have to be available. Thereby, the costs involved for producing nanobiocatalysts is a major issue in order that they are applied in the respective industrial processes. For example, [1] describes methods for producing a nanobiocatalyst at a comparably low enzyme and chemical consumption which consumption can be one major cost driver. Particularly, the described methods focus on efficiently immobilizing the enzyme on the support material. However, for large scale or multi-kilo scale production of nanobiocatalysts these methods still are not economically and ecologically satisfying particularly regarding their efficiency. Also, in these methods often problems regarding thixotrophy caused by the characteristics of the product can arise, particularly when being scaled up, such that comparably elaborate workarounds have to implemented, if possible at all.
Therefore, there is a need for a method allowing the production of nanobiocatalysts at comparably large scales and particularly at multi-kilo scales.